North Korea still needs food aid, despite improved
harvests

"Despite an improved harvest, DPR Korea will enter
1999 with a large food deficit with domestic cereal
production covering minimum consumption needs of the
population for only eight months," according to the latest
FAO/World Food Programme (WFP) Special
Reportfrom the country.

This year's cereal harvests are estimated at 3.48 million
tonnes, just over 30 percent up on last year's severely
reduced crop of 2.66 million tonnes. The FAO/WFP assessment
mission that visited the country in October, found that "a
combination of beneficial weather conditions and
international assistance with fertilizers has led to some
recovery in this year's harvest".

Nevertheless, imports of some 1.35 million tonnes of food
grain will be needed in 1998/99, including 1.05 million
tonnes as food asssistance.

The report calls for targeted food aid - some 480 000
tonnes primarily for children, hospital patients, and
pregnant and nursing women. The remaining cereal shortfall
will be needed to help the general population meet its
minimum needs. Much will be given as food-for-work.

Korean civilians, other than cooperative farmers and
their dependents, receive cereal allocations through the
public distribution system (PDS). Before 1995, average
cereal allocation per head was 260 kg per year - over 700 g
daily.

"With availability of cereals precipitously declining in
the marketing year 1997/98, allocations to PDS centres
dropped drastically as the year progressed", according to
the report. "The per caput provision was 400 g per day
during varying periods in November/December 1997. But it was
reduced to 300 g per day in January 1998, and 200 g per day
in February, 100 g per day in March." Between mid March and
August there was no distribution at all.

The report stresses that food aid is only a short-term
palliative to DPR Korea's ills, which are born of major
economic problems and "a deep rooted structural malaise",
compounded by the natural disasters of recent years.

"To ensure future food security, it is imperative that
the international assistance to agriculture be increased
substantially from its current low levels", the report says.
Furthermore, "solutions that address the major economic
difficulties" are crucial.

Farmers turn back to manual labour and draft animal
power

Meanwhile the people of DPR Korea have their own coping
mechanisms. Farmers are increasingly using draught animals
or manual labour in the fields, in place of obsolete or
unrepairable farm machinery. The report notes that the
government is encouraging the use of animal power, although
animal health tends to be poor because of feed problems.
Families are also increasingly using home gardens to grow
foodcrops such as green vegetables and potatoes to
compensate for the lack of cereals. Surplus vegetables are
sold at the market.

The government is also now discouraging farmers from
raising monogastric livestock, such as pigs, that require
valuable, high-quality grains for feed. Instead, they are
encouraging farmers to increase ruminant herds, particularly
goats. Goats can graze on pastures on hill slopes, which
have a limited potential for crop production.